soap and water
          dishes
          laundry
          or shower

brick from mortar
boys against girls

urban velvet smog
city vapors clog

this train -- there is a line
        beginners
        quitters

this parking lot -- there is a line
        shoppers
        influencers

open bar pharmacy, bottled water

                  no pity
                  no guarantees

dragon chasers
chin music
        
          lapsed short term memory loss

opening mail for grandmother
                the obituaries
                that ****** fly

a discussion among men
about a woman's voice
           come sit and listen

one last cigarette couple
walking home through the park
               driving alone in the dark
                             on the heels of
                             a reflection
                             of Christ
                             or an hourglass
                             in remission

them or not them
       just arrived
       just married
too many stairs
not enough elevators
worry about it later

them, definitely them
sharing beds
      under the leotard
      under the candlelight

a helping hand
finely manicured fingers
one stationary
        then two in missionary

word upon words need aspirin
            orchestrate
            headache
                            pillow is the threshold
                            tomorrow...soap and water

For every drip that drops
theres a kiss on your lip
we can’t stop
the tick proceeds the tock,
on every clock

Little bits of bitterness
makes a mess of emptiness
The pleases of teases
satisfy our happiness
And all that it will leave us
is pure **** of nothingness

Other than that soft
sweet scent of sweetness
Where only you can meet this
going back to our first kiss
that I myself so miss

Sunlight, moonlight
Come with their own greeting
Sun says, “good morning”
Moon replies, “good evening”.

Clockwork shift change
Little conversation on the horizon
Clocking in, clocking out
Leaving and arriving

Here I lurk
Clutching my shadow
In my fists
It shivers, shrivels, sighs
A flame shushed to silence
On its ashen throne
Here I grasp
Grasp the oozing, burning night
That drips down my fingers
A palm beneath a palm I place
A palm beneath another
It the creamy tiles kisses
And will come to me no more

A rumble wobbles
around the room
Of laughs and talks
And talks
However do I mingle
In these faceless folks?
However do I fathom
All these massless worlds
Orbiting around ecstatic tongues
That birth them
Birth them on and on
Birth them meaningless, and birth them blind

I think,
Maybe when the flood dies out
I think,
Maybe then I will see
Pick up the shells this land could not drink
And read the tales preserved
In their wounds
Maybe the drunken ghosts
Serving all these brightly dressed drinks
Will approach me too—

Not yet though
Not yet

I pull little hymns out of my throat
Roll them around in my mouth
It is there they sway,
There they wilt

A gaze chained to my eyes
Wanders about
Like an injured fly
On one face it rests
On one chuckle stumbles,
A crack skipping down the wall
A high-pitched laugh blooming
In the corner
There is a bleakness, believe me
In this world

A bleakness so pitiless and rotten
Its stench covers all that is born
All that is not
All—
There is a bleakness
And I often mistake it for my own
But I do not now
It is there in every eye
In every corpse hanging between the ribs
It grows up like a sturdy ****
On arms and legs and
Bones
Up and down the aisle it flows
In this classroom twinkling
with childish mirth

Up and down
It pats heads and laughing cheeks
It is there
It is there
And will not still
Will not stir either

I think,
I must warn them
These energetic faces trying
to resurrect joy
From the flesh of stories all skinned alive
Warn them
I must, I must
But the words pile up
And floods pile up
One upon the other thousands
And I lose myself somewhere

The chatter blends in with the chortle
And I cannot tell
The shadows imagined
From cloaked figures swaying around
I would warn them, believe me
Warn them I would
If only
If only I could grasp hold
Of this darkness
That mimics me everywhere I go
Ghost of a black lamb
I once sacrificed for
A purity I loved to violence

And longing never became
A shackle so well

I think,
maybe when the flood dies down
I will breathe,
I will breathe maybe
Here we lurk
A slave upon a slave rests
A slave beneath still
Two ghosts I birthed,
Two lambs opened up,
One will not love me
And one will not not—

Sometimes, sometimes
I will sit in my own room like a stranger
I will gracefully drag the chair out its den
And run my fingers through the white fur
That is white no longer
It lies there inviting
But I prop myself on the table instead
Head just touching the shelves above
Books kissed by dry dust
College notes never noticed
An empty fruitcake box
A candy wrapper
I run my gazes up and down the walls
Up and down
Up and down

A disheveled slave girl bare—
Still for me
Someone has covered her wounds
With poems ripped out of forgotten books
Her tears slide down like curious cracks
Beneath the silver veil
A bottle of Kerosine oil sits patiently near the pallet,
Rows of paint tubes
Children’s beds in a quiet, orphanage hall

Unfinished canvases awaiting a god
Brushes scattered around
Scattered like arms and legs
and skulls
In a tired battlefield

Sometimes I reread the stories
Scribbled on the doors
Quotes as bullet shells
abandoned
and hollow

Like a stranger
I admire the designs on the wall picture
Leaves of all the races
And the blueness beneath
Like a stranger
This silent, beautiful girl I see
For as a lover I have long ceased
A shy dove scared
Quietly humming a tune
I have never known

I look for the person who smiles in the pictures
The girl who’s known to talk to the walls
But the bed is empty
And folks in the photos
Will not meet my eyes
The verses swirl around in the air
And fumes of the oil
Rise up
Slow as the arrival of blooms
Slow as a withering moon
Till they are everywhere
A horde of soldiers
Marching down my throat

There is no one here
Somebody once taped the roses to the window
And painted suns on pieces of stray T-shirts
hung them up as tapestries
But they are not here now
The walls reek of aridity
A slave girl who will not smile

They like to preach to us to
Always be ourselves
But who are we—
Some fancy clothes wrinkled on the floor
As if passed out after a jolly evening
A fidget spinner
Spinning spinning spinning
In my hands
The fan groaning—
A symphony struggling to scream
And fumes rise up

I jump off the table
And slide the window open
The city, a worried lover, rushes in
It kisses the room
Its beautified bruises
Washes her with light
Air jolts the calendar awake
“Are you here?”
“Are you here?” It seems to ask
Are you here, are you here, are you—
And the walls nod their tired nods
A practiced, perfected ritual

Sometimes, some nights
I will tread through my own writings
Trail touches down
My own drawings, looking
For myself
Looking, looking,
And forever on search

Sometimes, sometimes I will realise
that no matter how many plants I hang
And words
I nail to these walls
To make them mine
I will always be a stranger to this room
Searching the stalls for another anklet
that will smile a star
in her next alluring dance—
A slave girl
And her golden crown.
Dah

I wander around the house
Like a heavy ghost
My room.
Turn off the A.C. and open up the windows
Faizan’s room, little brother
Mother’s
My room
It is too barren in here
The kitchen
Open the fridge; I am not even hungry
Drink some water
Faizan’s room
— What up?
— Doom
— Cool. Carry on
He sets a zombie on fire
Hoping around the mountains
Like a wounded bird

Mother’s room
Bathroom for another shower
My room
I might just be passing through the walls
‘Cause man do I not recall
Heading to the kitchen again
Older brother’s room
— What up?
— Hmm?
Exposes a red ear from beneath the headphones
— What up?
— Shut up.
Touché.
Mother’s room
— Do you want my help studying?
— Nah, I’m sleepy

My room
Turn on the A.C.
shut the window
The evening sun pours in through the purple curtains
Washing the room in a faint blush
(not that anybody asked)
…
…
Cannot sleep
…
…
Faizan’s room
— Weren’t you dying? He asks
— Couldn’t
— Ah, sad.
Kitchen
Might just make coffee
Faizan’s room
— Hey! Not here!
— Won’t spill it, chill dude.
He sighs,
Roaming around a darkened cavern
A diamond sword in hand.
He puts on a song he knows I like.
It flutters around us
Like a swarm of frightened moths
I feel I might explode—
Mother’s room
Wait, it’s night already?
But, I just had—
Perfect.
Beautiful.

My room.
The books laugh
The walls laugh, the clock laughs
I feel I might be melting
A night stands dressed up
At the end of the aisle
And I, a bride to be butchered,
Butchered, butchered
Then wed again

Time to study
(not the books,
the ceiling)
Haha.
Tricked ya.
Here, that rhymed, ******
Is this a poem yet?

(Why the hell am I in kitchen again?)

~
This isn't happening
all of the sudden
we need to close the beaches
and call in sick

Don't cry again teargas
it's not your fault
don't get hot there gun
you gave it your best shot

Song and dance, weekend warrior
soothe your soul
with a little radio friendly fire

The forest can be petrified
the sea wild
working without a mask
is both, you know

It's quite out of this world
but you haven't
really seen outerspace
until you've had DayQuil
with dissociatives

Then you take hot trips
to odd places
like an international
convenient store
where they're always
out of Africa and milk

I wish Monday mourning
would go jump off a bridge
I wish taco Tuesday
would become a festive holiday
nevertheless, our girl Friday
is always good for the job

The weight has lifted
the wait has (week)ended
the search for
my socks and sanity
can now kick off
~